HOME HEATING BY ATOM

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27676, 4 June 1955, Page 3

HOME HEATING BY ATOM

Suggestion Made In America (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) ABSECON (New Jersey), June 2. The possibility that homes might be heated and cooled within a few years by atomic-powered furnaces

was suggested by Mr Robert Ferry, general manager of the Institute of Boiler and Radiator Manufacturers. He said it would be possible to build nuclear reactors only twice the size of a motor-car battery and install it in a new home for 1500 dollars (about £545). which is about the cost of present-day heating systems in the United States.

The reactor would provide heat to make steam in a boiler. It would be explosion-proof since less than a critical mass of fisionable material would be needed to make the necessary amount of heal. Heavy shielding would protect against radioactivity. In summer, the atomic furnace would cool homes by the addition ot a small absorption refrigeration unit, operating on heat as a gas refrigerator does.

The fissionable material, hermetically sealed within the reactee, Would last about six years. J h l s , couW be placed for about 300 dollars (about £109) less than current fuel bills for coal, oil or B as over a similar period. Although no one was working on such an atomic furnace now, Mr r erry said that if manufacturers were to begin work on it they could be m full production by 1958. He discussed the possibility of the atomic furnace at the organisation'.annual meeting.